“With her beauty, her brains, her personality and her genuine acting ability, it should not be many moons before she enjoys stardom in the fullest sense of the word. You must see Down to the Sea in Ships.”
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Clara Bow
Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the 1927 film It brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl". Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.
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entertainment · American actress (1905–1965) · actor · film actor · also Clara Bow, It girl, Bow
Born 29 July 1905 · Died 27 September 1965 · Q234640
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2026· 4 entries
“Clara Bow who has reached the front rank of motion picture principal player ... [has] scored a tremendous hit in Down To The Sea In Ships.”
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“there was one boy who had always been my pal ... he kissed me ... I wasn”
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Public attention spiked: 3,448 Wikipedia readers in one day, 3.6× the usual 968, with 0 article edits.
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2024· 8 entries
Business Insider: Clara Bow's family thinks the silent-film star would have loved Taylor Swift's song about her
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Yahoo: Clara Bow’s Family Calls Taylor Swift Song a ‘Testament’ to Actress’ ‘Legacy’
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Entertainment Tonight: Who Is Clara Bow? All About the 'It Girl' Taylor Swift Named a Song After
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Cosmopolitan: ICYMI, Clara Bow’s Family Just Reacted to Taylor Swift’s New Song
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Yahoo: Clara Bow's Family Reacts to Taylor Swift’s New Song, Says Actress Would Have Been 'Protective' of Singer (Exclusive)
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Page Six: Clara Bow’s family reacts to Taylor Swift paying homage to original ‘It Girl’ on new album
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Page Six: Who is Clara Bow, and why did Taylor Swift name a song after her on ‘The Tortured Poets Department’?
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Us Weekly: Who Is Clara Bow? What to Know About How the OG ‘It Girl’ Relates to Taylor Swift
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2016· 1 entry
Variety announced that Silver Bullet Entertainment and MJW Media were producing a film based on David Stenn's biography, Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild
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1999· 1 entry
The American Film Institute excluded Bow from its finalized "100 Years
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1994· 1 entry
Was honored with an image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld
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1981· 1 entry
Budd Schulberg described Bow as "an easy winner of the dumbbell award" who "couldn't act," and compared her to a puppy that his father B
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1980· 1 entry
Stated: "[Bow] became a star without nobody's help"
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1965· 2 entries
Died 1965-09-27.
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At age 60, she died of a heart attack, which her autopsy attributed to atherosclerosis
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1960· 1 entry
Awarded star on Hollywood Walk of Fame (1960).
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1950· 1 entry
Wrote, "If ever a star was made by public demand, it was Clara Bow
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1949· 1 entry
Checked into The Institute of Living to be treated for her chronic insomnia and diffuse abdominal pains
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1947· 1 entry
On the radio show Truth or Consequences, when Bow was the mystery voice in the show's "Mrs
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1932· 1 entry
Bow signed a two-picture deal with Fox Film Corporation, for Call Her Savage (1932) and Hoop-La (1933)
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1931· 4 entries
But the pressures of fame, public scandals, and overwork, took their toll on Bow's fragile emotional health
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Bow retired from acting in 1933
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When Bow came under tabloid scrutiny, Parsons defended her and stuck to her first opinion on Bow:
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Accusing her of exhibitionism, incest, lesbianism, bestiality, drug addiction, alcoholism, and having contracted a venereal disease
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1929· 1 entry
Bow kept her position as the top box-office draw and queen of Hollywood
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1928· 2 entries
Bow appeared in four Paramount releases: Red Hair, Ladies of the Mob, The Fleet's In, and Three Week-Ends, all of which are lost apart from a 1-minute fragment of Red Hair and a 1-2 minute fragment from Three Week-Ends
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And 1929 and the second box-office draw in 1927 and 1930
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1927· 2 entries
Bow starred in Wings, a war picture rewritten to accommodate her, as she was Paramount's biggest star, but was not happy about her part: "[Wings is]
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Bow appeared in six Paramount releases: It, Children of Divorce, Rough House Rosie, Wings, Hula and Get Your Man
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1926· 2 entries
Bow's agreement with Paramount was renewed into a five-year deal: "Her salary will start at $1700 a week and advance yearly to $4000 a week for the last year
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Bow signed her first contract with Paramount: "to retain your services as an actress for the period of six months from June 6, 1926 to December 6, 1926, at a salary of $750
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1925· 2 entries
Schulberg filed Preferred Pictures for bankruptcy, with debts at $820,774 and assets $1,420
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Bow appeared in 14 productions: six for her contract owner, Preferred Pictures, and eight as an "out-loan"
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1924· 3 entries
The Los Angeles Times, in a significant article "A dangerous little devil is Clara, impish, appealing, but oh, how she can act
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Bow got her first lead; "the clever little newcomer whose work wins fresh recommendations with every new picture in which she appears"
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Bow and Marie Prevost "flapped unhampered as flappers De luxe
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1923· 4 entries
Bow left New York, her father, and her boyfriend behind for Hollywood
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Befriended Louella Parsons, who interviewed her for the New York Morning Telegraph
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Sarah died at the age of 43 from her epilepsy
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“In movie parlance, she 'stole' the picture ...”
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1922· 4 entries
And went on general distribution on March 4, 1923
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But Bow rejected psychological explanations and left the institute
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“Miss Bow will undoubtedly gain fame as a screen comedienne.”
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“would be much better off dead.”
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1919· 1 entry
Bow enrolled in Bay Ridge High School for Girls
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1905· 1 entry
Born 1905-07-29.
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1874· 1 entry
“had a quick, keen mind... all the natural qualifications to make something of himself, but didn”
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